


The head

by Veei



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, in canon gore-ish, talk about Ned's head on the spike
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 04:57:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13046961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veei/pseuds/Veei
Summary: After one of Joffrey’s taunt, Sansa decides to “steal” her father's head and bury it in the godswood.





	The head

In the glow of the moonlight the rotting head could be anyone's. Times would not be so dire if it was.  
Sandor was so full of wine and the girl was standing so still that he almost didn't see her.   
  
Earlier in the White Sword Tower, around the wide table of the Round Room, Blount had boasted of how he had obeyed his king today, flashing the length of his sword. Sandor had left rather than scatter the rat’s teeth.  
If her pains lingered, it didn't show.  
  
The smell wafting down from Ned Stark’s remains was not as bad as it had been, now that the crows had been at him. But what little flesh remained was not done rotting and there were few empty spikes all along the walk. Yet she did not waver.  
The girl didn’t hear Sandor coming up behind her, but she never did when he found her out when she should be asleep, which was too often to his taste.  
  
“Please, please don't move.”, she prayed, her feet finding purchase in the stones, her hand reaching for the spike and suddenly Sandor was too weary for anger.  
  
The sharp drop would mangle her.  
He staggered to her and plucked her from the wall. She stifled a scream and twisted in his hands, shoving her elbow in his chest, until he let her down. When she realized it was him, she stopped fighting, her face a mix of fear and guilt and defiance.  
  
“What do you think you're doing?”, he asked in a slur worse than usual.  
  
Evidently she had not thought of a lie. His gaze dropped to the fabric tucked in the waist of her dress and through the glaze of wine he understood.  
  
“I’m sorry, I know he was a traitor but I can't leave him like that.”, she told his feet.  
“So you would rather join him?”  
“No!”  
  
He tried to pull the fabric from her waist but she grabbed it back. Feathers fell out slowly.  
  
“I thought… I would make the spike fall and make it seem like a bird of prey took it.”, she confessed.  
  
Not the dumbest of ideas, but far from the brightest either.  
  
“They wouldn't.”, he huffed, “It’s the maggots’ prize now.”  
  
He was tall enough to see that clearly. They writhed in the empty sockets of the eyes, sometimes falling on the walk below or sticking to the gore that ran down the spike.  
  
There were no more traces left of the stern face of Stark.  
  
She winced but he had no pretty words for her. Only truth if she wanted it. His head swam worse than ever. He turned and slid down the wall, maybe that would help him think clearer.  
  
“What would you do with it? Keep it under your bed?”  
  
“The godswood.”, she answered, twisting the fabric she had brought in her hands. “There's no weirwood, but I found a quiet place by the pool. He would not want that but Joffrey... He… He would leave him _here_.”  
  
She must not be afraid of him anymore, to tell him so much.   
He looked up at her, from below she seemed taller.  
Footsteps echoed somewhere in the maze of corridors and her composure crumbled, like the frightened prey she was.  
  
“Here.”, he gestured to his side. She looked at him with eyes wide as a hunted down doe, but she understood quick enough and sit in the shade next to him.  
“Is it worth getting…”  
  
He thought he knew what he was asking but the red was a heavy cloud in his head, and his thoughts dissolved. Now that he was on his arse, it was worse.  
  
“Yes.”, she answered anyway, more resolved, more honestly than he thought she would. That “yes” would make some men forsake the bottle but it would only make him drink until he no longer wondered why any of it had happened. Still happened. Would not stop.  
If the moon was any brighter then he would likely see her new bruises.  
The guard they had heard turned the corner. Sandor draped the cloak over her, under the dark of it nestled between him and the corner of the wall, she might as well not be there at all.  
It was not his white cloak, this one Sandor couldn't wait to get it off anytime he put it on. Sandor always thought of it as Selmy’s cloak, even though it wasn’t. Since he had _earned_ it, it was the cloak that every glance avoided, not just the ruin of his face.    
On the days Sandor served and he would not drink a drop, he could still manage that, the bottle beckoned louder and louder and when he was done with duty he drank like a man dying of thirst. Not that he resisted much anymore. No lands. No wife. A white cloak to undo all the possibilities that had not even been there. Red did not wash away that bitterness from his mouth, but he still tried.  
  
The guard gave only the briefest of glance to Joffrey’s dog. One night drunk in the kitchens, another drunk in the stables, tonight drunk on the battlements. Becoming Kingsguard had not made a better man of him.  
  
“The Imp is sending his bones back to your mother.”, he said when the man was gone, “The head too. Not worth getting yourself under Joffrey’s thumb now.”  
  
She gasped and pushed the cloak away to look up at him, her small fingers clutching his arm and he could feel the warmth of her hand through his tunic.  
  
“Truly?”  
  
It struck him how young she was in her hopefulness. The plump curve of her cheeks, her eyes too big for her face, the small thin frame of her. He was a fool for forgetting.  
Now he saw the dark stain on her cheekbone, close to her eye to have left her blind. There was a cut on the back of her hand. The seams along the shoulder of her gown were ripped.  
  
He sometimes woke from slumber to her scream in his ears, clear as if her father's head was being chopped off now. Her pleas dissolving into hysterical sobs.  
She was not just young, she was brittle too. She might have managed to get here undetected, and he didn’t even want to guess how many times she had slipped away from her room in the dark, but if the wrong man fell upon her… He brought the wine to his mouth and swallowed the rest of it. When he put the skin down, she drew her knees to her chest. Let her be uncomfortable, it was a small price to pay for her carelessness.  
  
She was still waiting for his answer, he realized when she kept scrutinizing him. At least, it was dark enough for her to look at him now, even sitting at the left of him. Or maybe half a face was better than none.  
He nodded, that was what he had heard. He might give her words of comfort, but he was not that man, for better or for worse.  
  
“Not you though.” He managed to focus his eyes on her. “You're still Joffrey’s, little bird.”  
“I love Joffrey with all my…”  
“Don't start telling me how you can't wait to be his dutiful wife.”, he warned her. “I’ve drunk too much or too little to listen to that shit.”  
  
Too loud, too mean, too drunk. Sandor gave her time to cry, but she didn't. When his head would stop swirling he would search other words. In a minute or two, he would try.  
  
Sansa.  
Robert had to die, that fat oaf, and let the boy be king. He doubted there was any man who was the better for it. It was only the beginning, he could tell the girl not to be so damned soft but the words did not come. He should have kept some wine.  
The words she wanted were not pretty, but words made ugly in their complicit lies.  
He had nothing to give her yet.  
  
“That's war you were looking at. Is it what you wanted it to be? Are any of your songs true to that?”, he nodded towards the row of spikes.  
  
She didn't take the bait.  
  
“I never wanted it. I never wanted any of it.”  
“Might be you didn’t.”  
  
It had been a quick and violent chain of events.  
The old Hand dying. The long voyage north. Her little climber of a brother falling and breaking. Her mother taking the queen’s brother on the road. Tywin Lannister’s acting like a cat whose tail is being pulled. Ned Stark calling for Gregor’s head. For peace. For justice. Sandor could have snapped the man’s neck with one hand for that. Then Littlefinger had been at his throat.  
Something else had happened to tie it all together. But what?  
  
“Say goodbye, girl, if you want to. He’ll be gone soon.”  
  
With deference she closed her eyes and prayed, taking a long breath every time she prayed to another face of the seven.  
  
“Thank you.”, she murmured when she was done.  
  
Sandor tensed at once, from his teeth to his balled fists.  
  
“Thank me for what? Joffrey would have known it was you. Or punish you for it anyway and make a show of it. And you should know by now he's not one for mercy. Your brother gives him reason enough to be crossed.” He pointed a wavering finger at the bruise on her cheekbone. “How many beatings will it take for you to understand?”  
  
He offered her his worst side and she looked on. She was still afraid of him, of his temper, of Joffrey and of the queen. He had been wrong about that, she still feared much. But she would not break.  
  
He knew, _she can take_ more than I can stand to look.  
  
“You should bar your door when the sun sinks and be thankful the wretches of the keep are more afraid of Cersei Lannister than of the seven hells. There are more terrors in the shadows than the ones you fear.”  
“There are terrors in Maegor and on the Iron Throne too.”  
  
What to answer to that, but to agree? To an unflowered maid who had never learned to wield a blade but to cut meat in her plate, with no living kin for hundreds of miles, it surely was.  
And he could do nothing.  
  
“Let's take you back. I need my bed.”  
“In a moment.” She rested her head on his arm, so lightly that with a few more gulps of red he would not have noticed. “Please.”  
  
Foolish fledgling, putting her trust where it was not safe. At least, he had no more secrets to spill.  
  
“When will you tell Joffrey? In the morning?”  
“Tell him what?”  
“That I was… on the walk.”  
  
Sandor wondered if to stop sleeping and stay by the boy every hour of every day would even make a difference.  
Soon, Joffrey would ask him to beat her. And then…  
  
“If no one sees us when I take you back, he won't know from me.” Not a worthy gamble, spies would still talk if they knew anything. Not a bargain a Kingsguard should offer.  
“Thank you.”, she half said, half prayed, crumpling into an even smaller shape.  
  
The pull of sleep grew, receded and disappeared. Sandor could not fall asleep now. And in his bed nothing awaited but his own mistakes. He drew the cloak over her.  
Maybe he had no words for her, but he could give her a little more time where she was safe. That, he could do.

**Author's Note:**

> I always wondered what went through Sansa's mind when her father's remains were sent back to Winterfell... and she still had to stay.
> 
> "she can take more than I can stand to look" is probably the most canon i'll ever get Sandor.


End file.
